Plasma-assisted pretreatment of wheat straw for ethanol production.

The potential of wheat straw for ethanol production after pretreatment with O(3) generated in a plasma at atmospheric pressure and room temperature followed by fermentation was investigated. We found that cellulose and hemicellulose remained unaltered after ozonisation and a subsequent washing step, while lignin was degraded up to 95% by O(3). The loss of biomass after washing could be explained by the amount of lignin degraded.